Day 12

Another excellent day in Guangzhou.  Our day was completely free but we were told to stay close to the hotel in case Jordy's TB test results showed anything because this would require us to head to get a xray today.  We heard no news and our guide told us that was good news.  At 2:30pm our guide met us and volunteered to take us to the jewelry market.  So glad she did.  The walk was fun as we had to pass through the medicine market, a pet animal market, and a popular shopping street.  The jewelry market was almost overwhelming but having Becky with us made it an easy trip.  The jewelry market sells jade, real pearls, crystal, agate, silver, copper, wood carved beads and sculptures, silk embroidered items, etc.  We may head back for fun again tomorrow.  We found some pretty neat things.

Our day ended with us doing the Pearl River dinner cruise.  We started off at dusk and got to watch the city light up as the sun went down.  Our guide informed us that Guangzhou recently had a face lift because they hosted the 2010 Asian games.  Because of that, the city spent a great deal of money making the city pretty and they've done a great job keeping it pretty.

I want to shed light on a very interesting thing called the Mongolian blue spot today.  There are several reasons but mostly because it's interesting.  As you will see in one of the pictures from today, our son has a blue circle on his lower back.  To many, this will look like a very large bruise.  However, this is a very common occurrence among Chinese children and other nationalities as well.  It's actually a birth mark.  You can look up Mongolian spots online and it will tell you that the occurrence rate for Mongolian spots in the Asian population is upwards of 90%.  These usually disappear in the first 5 years of life but most definitely are gone by puberty.  So, no worries.  I promise we haven't hurt Jordy in any way and the Master doctor confirmed it in his appointment.

While I'm talking about the Master doctor, I thought I'd also share that it has been a concern of ours that Jordy may have hemophilia.  It is mentioned only one time on a medical blog by his foster home but we have been preparing ourselves for it.  When we received his vaccination record from the foster home during the adoption, there was a note indicating that they stopped giving him his standard shots because of a blood issue.  However, there is no mention as to what this "issue" actually is.  This caused a problem when we went in for his Visa physical.  The doctor asked what we thought it might be and I told him that we had read it might be hemophilia.  He indicated that there is no physical evidence of hemophilia and he strongly believes that he does not have this.  Yay!!!  Jordy has no bruising or swelling of joints which is very prevalent with hemophilia.  However, this still left unanswered questions.  What did doctors find that made them note in his file that vaccinations are not a good idea?  We still don't really know.  Our guide had to contact the foster home and request further records to indicate what this issue could be.  The only information we received back was that some of his labs were outside the normal ranges.  Until we get back to the US and visit with our peds doctor, we won't really know or understand.  I see lots blood work in Jordy's future.  Bummer. Still I consider it good news that hemophilia seems to not be the issue.

Today's pictures:

What kid doesn't love bath time with bubbles.

My beautiful birth mark.

My new favorite beverage, chocolate milk tea!  Actually, I love almost all the tea here in China.  Our tea in the US is no good but the tea here rocks!

These are bizarre.  They taste mildly sweet and are basically layered jello.  I don't know what corn has to do with it.

This is a breakfast food evidently.  I eat it everyday because why not eat a good portion of veggies to start the day.

This feels almost normal.  Sort of resemble twice baked potatoes.

Some more island pictures.  This is a track built in the central courtyard.  We've caught runners in the evening doing rounds.

Beautiful gardens everywhere and you can see the European architecture of the building in the background.

More European style buildings.

Here is one of those beautiful trees that has put down new shoots.  Our guide told us that these trees can grown continuously for long distances and they are all part of the original tree.  The largest trees on the island are hundreds of years old and just stunning to look at.

They literally just added these in the courtyard so they aren't ready to used yet.

In the morning, you can catch crowds of people playing badminton in this part of the courtyard.  Some even bring portable nets.

This building houses apartments.

We are in a jewelry store filled with so many beautiful things.

Check out all the real pearls in various colors.

Isles with bags and bags of real pearls in every color you could imagine.

This is a jade or 'yu' store.  This jade is real natural jade which you can tell by seeing if it is transparent.  If no light can pass through it, it is not real.  Jade represents beauty, grace, and purity in the Chinese culture.  There is a Chinese saying that says, "Gold has a value; jade is invaluable".

So, we bought some.  :)

The shopping street.  It was very busy.

Part of the medicine market.  They have all kinds of stuff used to make all natural remedies.  They boil most of these items in various concoctions.

You can boil these dried sea horses for some remedies.  These actually made me quite sad.  If only they would come back to life with a little water like Sponge Bob does.  I'd buy them all.

Our dinner cruise boat.

Before the sun goes down.

Jordy is starting to avoid the camera at all costs.  Stinker!  The tower in the background is like the CN tower.  You can actually go to the top and look down through a glass floor.  We've already figured out Jordy is afraid of heights.  That makes this adventure a no go.

Another interesting thing I've been learning about here in China is weddings.  When we were in Zhengzhou, our hotel had many advertisements for weddings.  While talking with Tina our guide, I learned that in the city, weddings take place usually in hotels.  This makes complete sense because most people do not attend church of any kind and there are so very few churches or adequate spaces for such venues.  Also interesting, weddings that take place in the country are held in the home of the groom and the bride's parents don't usually attend.  The bride leaves her parent's home and the only family at the wedding is the groom's family.  However, the weddings that take place in the city at the hotels have adequate space to allow for both families to attend.

Our guide here in Guangzhou shared with us that a bride usually goes through three dresses on her wedding day.  She said it is common for the bride to first wear a western style dress in cream or white, then another dress, and then ending in a traditional Chinese red wedding dress.  I share all of this with you because we have seen soooooooooooooo many girls in wedding dresses on the island.  At first, I just assumed that they were getting wedding photos taken.  However, I learned today that there are many shops in Guangzhou that do wedding photo sessions without requiring a wedding.  I compare it to us dressing up for old style photos only in this case couples go to a shop and dress up in wedding attire for fun and have pictures taken.  Seems sort of weird but at the same time, it would be fun.  Our guide Becky said she has done it before.

Here are a few photos from the island just today:

Tomorrow, we head out at 7:40am to pick up the medical packet from the doctor and then we are off to our consulate appointment at 8:30am.  This is the last official step before we leave Guangzhou.  This helps us finish Jordy's citizenship stuff and get his Visa for travel to the US.  We have to stay until Wednesday as required by the consulate and then on Thursday, we make the long hard trip home.  Sort of dreading it!  Not because of Jordy.  He's a trooper.  The flight is just really hard anyways.